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Thanks Danny. I worded my post the way I did because although Gateway officially "bought" E-Machines, it was certainly not from a position of strength. E-Machines is the company that came into the relationship from the position of strength, although neither company had anywhere near the market strength of Dell or HP.

The original story linked at the top of the thread is a little out of date. Gateway is now closing ALL its stores on April 9.

POWAY, Calif. (AP) - Troubled computer maker Gateway Inc. announced Thursday that it will shutter all its retail stores next week, eliminating 2,500 jobs, or nearly 40 percent of its work force.

The company, based in the San Diego suburb of Poway, said its 188 stores will close April 9, and workers will be dismissed as the retail operations wind down.

Dell has done the retail stores right! They only have a limited number of them in only high income places, I though Gateway would close them down sooner or later, my Gateway country has about 20 sales reps on the floor and almost no customers.

Opening the stores was the worst mistake Gateway ever made. The decision to close them has been long expected, especially since E-Machines took over.

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I agree. Best Buy threatening to sever the relationship with Gateway/EMachines due to the fact that they were a competitor was the final nail in the coffin.

I will miss being able to go see the units before I buy them, but the old way worked fine for me as I have owned Gateways since 1990 and will simply use the net to place my orders.

It will be intersting to see what happens now with their fledgling CE business. Most are comfortable buying a computer sight unseen, but I don't see it happening with plasma TVs. I wonder if an expanded relationship with Best Buy and other retailers will now occur......

I have a friend that subs out to Gateway doing plasma tv installs, he recently told me that there is is 35% failure rate with units that he has installed.

Bob

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From the experience of people I know who have bought plasma screens, and none of them Gateway, that is one technology I'm going to give a pass. It just isn't ready or perhaps never will be ready. When it works, it is beautiful, but there are too many "gotchas" inherent to the technology itself, regardless of the brand. Of the 8 friends who have plasma screens, all of them say they wish they'd waited and regret paying the price they did for their screens.

TechTv says that the Gateway plasma's for around $3,000 are not as high resolution as the other HD tv's and plasma's. Also I heard this about a year or two ago that they were going to close their stores, heard a few rumors that they were going out of business, although I see that is not true.

They are considered "enhanced resolution". Better than DVD but NOT HD. Something like 800 lines of resolution or something.

If you DO want to buy one, head to a Gateway store this week as all of the retail stores are closing 4/9. It's not clear what they will do to show their products (TVs need to be seen, not many will buy them sight unseen via mail order or the internet)

I would expect them to try and use their e-machine retailers for store space..... Even with the problems Gateway DID sell more plasma TVs last year than anyone else so that may be attractive to BestBuy or another emachine partner.

Most of Gateways plasmas are ED, not HD, they are only 480p. that is a BIG downside! I have also heard that they are really bad from some of my friends that have them, always need to be fixed or replaced.
"From the experience of people I know who have bought plasma screens, and none of them Gateway, that is one technology I'm going to give a pass. It just isn't ready or perhaps never will be ready. When it works, it is beautiful, but there are too many "gotchas" inherent to the technology itself, regardless of the brand.'
~ you are correct! Plasmas are not ready to be bought yet and I don't think that they ever willl be, considering you must refill their gas after 8-10 years of average use, costing a lot of money. they also are energy hogs and produce alot of heat, along with some not even including any tuner at all. I would go with LCD anyday over plasma, in fact that is what I did.